This past weekend was such an AMAZING weekend! Since moving to LA a year and a half ago, I haven’t had many opportunities to have “girl time.” I totally love my boyfriend Tim, and we have the best times together, but sometimes a girl just needs her girlfriend.

My best friend since first grade, Kristen, lives in Las Vegas. It’s awesome, because we’re both from Ohio (we went to school together from 1st-12th grade), but she’s out on the West coast too. Vegas is about 4.5 to 5 hours from LA, so it’s a relatively easy drive. I really needed some girl time to talk about my upcoming life decisions, and Kristen is one of the best people to talk to about this stuff. She knows everything about my life, she has moved away from home a couple times, and we both went to college for journalism (I ended up switching majors halfway through). Needless to say, we have a lot in common!

Kristen wanted to spend Saturday at the beach, and I LOVE the beach, so that’s what we did! I go to Santa Monica Beach at least once a week, so we decided to take a trip up the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and find a beach with a little more character. We drove through Malibu, and found Leo Carillo State Park. It was PERFECT!

Since moving here, I’ve been looking for a beach with big rocks. Leo Carillo has tons of rocks, little tide pools, and caves! We didn’t have our bathing suits, so we couldn’t go in the caves. That’s for next time. 🙂

The tide pools had snails and crabs EVERYWHERE! Crabs are my second favorite animal (pink flamingos are my #1), so getting to see little hermit crabs in their natural habitat was super awesome. I wanted to take them all home!

Do you see him?! Isn’t he so cute?!?!

Kristen and I found some shells and beach glass (you can’t really find that at Santa Monica Beach), so that was exciting! After we felt satisfied with our beach trip, we drove down the PCH back to Los Angeles. We stopped at a vista point in Malibu to snap some photos. This is one of my faves:

What a totally stunning view. Sometimes I stop everything I’m doing and think, “Is this really my life?” I’m so incredibly grateful to live in SoCal, with my amazing boyfriend, working jobs that don’t require me to sit at a desk all day, and to have a friend like Kristen who is willing to visit me. <3